The Class of 2006 Sounds Off
Ever wonder what goes through the head of an Academy Award winner after they’ve been handed an Oscar? Hollywood.com was on hand backstage with all the winners to find out.
Writer-director Paul Haggis on whether he put any stock in the quiet rumors that his film Crash would upset perceived favorite Brokeback Mountain for Best Picture:
I didn’t believe that for a second. I didn’t believe any of that nonsense. In fact, we were so shocked. I mean, shocked. We’re still trying to figure out if we got this.
Philip Seymour Hoffman on if he initially thought Capote provided a role that could ultimately win an Oscar:
I never thought of a role as an “award” role. If I thought that way, I’d be a pretty miserable person, I think–if I was making choices based on a role that was going to bring me something. You can’t make choices in life like that. I don’t think you can, not when you’re in an art form. That’s how I see it. So I just saw the roles and opportunity that was going to be a great one, it was going to be a challenge.
Ang Lee on what making Brokeback Mountain meant to him:
It certainly changed me. Before I get into making this movie, I was very tired from two very ambitious works, The Hulk and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I almost wanted to retire. I felt I had enough, I hit the bottom–sort of like my mid-life crisis or something, and this movie teach me how to look at myself, how to manage myself in movie-making again, enjoying making them. And the movie was shot very simply, nothing special. But most important, it taught me again it’s about human emotions, drama and acting. So I feel like I had a re-jump start. In ways, it reminded me of me making my first little movie. There is a certain freshness to it, actually, coming from tiredness, ironically.
Rachel Weisz on the triumph of thought-provoking films like The Constant Gardener in 2006:
It’s definitely nice to be a part of a moment where fiction is holding a mirror up to contemporary culture and asking questions about what’s going on. In the case of Good Night, and Good Luck it’s a historical piece, but it certainly made me think when I watched it what’s changed.
George Clooney on counting on the Academy’s penchant for rewarding actors who gain weight for a role, as he did in Syriana:
The gentleman that I was playing in the movie, Bob Baer, when I first took the role was sort of pudgy and out of shape, and I thought that was probably a good thing [to incorporate]. And then he found out the Hollywood guy was playing him and he got in shape. So it kind of screwed the whole thing up for me.
Honorary Oscar winner Robert Altman on being called a maverick in Hollywood:
This is a tag that someone else puts on me. This isn’t the way I feel. I mean, the only difference is that the major studios that I’ve been involved in the last 20, 30, 40 years, they sell shoes and I make gloves. We’re just in a little different business, that’s all.
STATES OF SHOCK
Reese Witherspoon on what she was thinking when her name was announced as Best Actress for Walk the Line:
“Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no–I hope I don’t have to say anything.” You know, it’s really hard for me. One of the hardest things about this movie was talking in front of a large group of people, or singing in front of a large group of people, because the filmmaking experience for me has always been very small and very intimate. It’s never more than 50 people watching your performance. They’re all busy doing more important things, like lighting the set. So for me, it was a great sort of accomplishment to just learn to stand in my own shoes and in my own self and be proud of myself which is different for me…I usually don’t come up for air very much, and this is a wonderful moment where I finally actually got to stand back for a couple of months and go, “Wow, did I really do that?” It’s hard for me to even think about that. I do feel it’s sort of in my life right now. It’s sort of forcing me to look at what I’ve achieved and I’m very happy.
Crash producer Kathy Shulman on thanking both her husband and her “wife” onstage:
Did I really say that? I meant my husband and my daughter, Leah. If I said that, it proves how nervous I was. Oh my God. Did I really say that?
Crash co-screenwriter Bobby Moresco on Shulman’s slip-up:
I was sitting with her husband and he said to me, “Who’s her wife?”
Three 6 Mafia’s Jordan “Juicy J” Houston on hearing Hustle & Flow’s “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” named Best Song:
I just couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t stand still. I had to run somewhere. My heart was beating so fast, I automatically just ran. I started to run down stairs and run back and run all over the place. People probably thought the police were going to be chasing me.
UNIVERSAL APPEAL
South African writer-director Gavin Hood on what Tsotsi winning the Best Foreign Film will mean to his country:
I think it’s going to change the way South Africans view their moviemaking. In the sense that we’re the second film nominated. Last year, Yesterday was nominated but we’re the first film to win, and I feel very, very proud to hold this because it tells me–and all of us at home–that we can do it. And that hopefully it means that people will keep investing in our local stories, because this gives investors a little more confidence, and what we want more than anything else is that sense that people and human emotion is universal and we’re more alike than we think we are around the world. And we grew up watching American films, and I hope that Americans will watch our stories and just as we’ve learned about Americans and the rest of the world, people will know more about us from our stories, and find that we’re actually so similar as human beings inside.
Best Original Score composer Gustavo Santaolalla on his status as the first Latin winner in the category:
I was very proud to be here and very happy to be first nominated–and nominated with a great movie, with a movie that I think needed to be made, like Brokeback Mountain. And I was very proud to be nominated as an Argentinean, as a Hispanic and as a Latino. For me, it’s something very important. I’ve worked all my career to try to keep that identity…I’m an advocate of our culture and I think this is the perfect country. It’s a country that embraces cultures and that’s how this country was founded. When I grew up in Argentina, America for us was a continent, it wasn’t a country. America was a continent. So I think it’s very important that we are represented, and I’m very happy and very proud to be part now of the Academy.
Ang Lee on becoming the first Asian named Best Director:
I think it’s important to be honest and be loyal and treasure your own culture roots and do your best, because that’s your best: where your root is. That’s how I did it, and then you’ll find a way. You’ll find something to move your heart. But being honest and being brave and being proud of your culture–I cannot say anything more valuable than that. That’s how it worked for me.
Visual Effects winner Richard Taylor of New Zealand’s WETA Workshop on where the team’s King Kong Oscar will go:
They go back to WETA, to be shared with all of the technicians. None of the awards are at home. They are all on the shelves, so the guys can take them home and have them with their families and enjoy them. And this is an important Oscar for our company because we were caught up in the phenomenon of Lord of Rings, but this Oscar says we are part of the industry. We are here to stay, and we have got a lot still to offer.
Costume Design winner Colleen Atwood on the multicultural, cross-continental team that created Memoirs of a Geisha’s wardrobe:
I had women from Armenia, from Costa Rica, from Mexico making kimonos, listening to Memoirs of a Geisha with their headsets on in Spanish. And I had people in Copenhagen doing embroidery for me who are Danish, people in London who are English, people in Japan making things for me. So it was really interesting that all these different cultures embraced the beauty of the kimono in a way that was with the greatest love.
Best Documentary director Luc Jacquet on why his film March of the Penguins, with an entirely non-human cast, resonated with audiences:
I don’t think it’s a question of human beings or not. It’s a question of interesting good story–I would say refreshing story. And with our films, small documentariues, you can touch the hearts of millions of people, and you don’t need to have special effects or naked women or violence to do such a thing.
Best Animated Feature co-director Steve Fox on the widespread appeal of the Claymation duo Wallace & Gromit:
Nick [Park]’s great invention was Gromit, because he’s a character that doesn’t speak. You know, it just translates to any language; it’s universal. And Nick and I are great fans of silent moments in films, and so many films these days seems to be full of wise-cracking comedians, desperate to keep their job almost. So people can experience the film through Gromit’s eyes on a kind of deeper level, almost–it rises above words.
[PAGEBREAK]THE FEMININE MYSTIQUE
Paul Haggis on why, despite remaining remarkably cool and Zen-like throughout the stressful awards season, he finally got emotional on the Oscar stage:
Yeah, thanks for noticing. Well, my mom’s ring was the thing that just got me. My sister Jess gave me that during the commercial break and I just went… She said, “She knows you’re here, and this is so you know it.” And I was going, “Oh Jesus, why did you do that to me?” And it just threw off everything I was going to say. And, yeah, I miss my mom very, very much.
Reese Witherspoon on the importance of the example the women in her family set for her:
I’ve been really, really lucky to have such a wonderful family support me and believe in me so much. I really feel like that’s the reason I’m here…Particularly my mother and my grandmother. Really, they taught me a lot and showed me a lot of characteristics that a woman should have in life, and how tough women are and how strong we are. And I feel like it really helped my performance with June, because I sort of came in with an innate knowledge of who she was as a woman.
Rachel Weisz on what was happening in her head, and in her pregnant body, when her name was called:
With the lead up to that, the baby was going crazy. Poor baby. I think it was from the adrenaline. It was kicking around, but once I went onto the stage, I think it’s so overwhelming that I couldn’t even–I couldn’t have hardly told you my name. So I didn’t feel anything when I was up on stage. I think it’s because I’m pregnant my brain is a bit like porridge. Anyway, I was a big blank. I really don’t think I was thinking anything at all. It’s a very surreal, strange, strange feeling.
Colleen Atwood on the Hollywood actresses she would love to design for:
There are so many leading ladies in this town that are gorgeous that I never dress. I think everyone would love to probably dress Nicole Kidman in a film, Reese Witherspoon in a film, Jennifer Aniston, who I was just standing next to. There’s just so many people that are out there that are incredible to dress. And I really loved dressing Queen Latifah in Chicago. She was fantastic to wardrobe. It’s the some of the most interesting looking and beautiful people out there, so it’s hard to go wrong.
Robert Altman on yet another secret about his heart transplant:
I have the female heart, I think–It feels like it. And it’s about 40 years old now, and it came from Tacoma or someplace in Washington. Usually people fall out of trees and hurt their heads, and so they take the heart out and rush it to wherever somebody’s waiting for it, and I was waiting for it.
MUTUAL ADMIRATION
Robert Altman on his success working with actors:
I am so blinded by actors and what they do. And that happens to me every time. There’s not one film that I’ve ever done that I would take any moment of it back, that I would change any of it. It is what it is, and it’s really the actors that do this. And they get a lot of credit, but they should get all the credit because I really just stand back and watch. They’re the ones that take an idea, a script and take it from two dimensions into three. They give it the third dimension, not me.
Philip Seymour Hoffman on being temperamentally unsuited for the awards season process:
What helped me through it–and hopefully what helped us all through it–was each other. And I don’t know if I said that before, but that’s really how I felt. We all really had a great time together. And we really like each other. And the other nominees–not just for my category, but the other categories throughout–were very giving, compassionate, friendly, fun and it made it an easier thing.
George Clooney on getting to know Ang Lee:
Let me tell you something right now: I don’t like that guy. I’ve seen him a lot, I’ve spent a lot of time with him. I caught him stealing at the last awards show. So you take that home and you tell everyone. No, I’m very proud to be even in a game with those guys. There’s three first time directors on this, and then there is Steven Spielberg and Ang Lee. So I’m just proud to put my name on that card.
INDUSTRY INSIGHT
Screenwriter Larry McMurtry on why Crash edged out Brokeback Mountain for Best Picture:
I do have an opinion, because I have had four movies nominated for Best Picture, and the three that were rural lost. The one that was urban Terms of Endearment, won… Members of the Academy are mostly urban people. We are an urban nation. We’re not a rural nation. It’s not easy even to get a rural story made. And in the four instances that I have had–Hud, The Last Picture Show, Brokeback Mountain and Terms of Endearment–the urban story won, and the three rural stories didn’t…Crash is a hometown movie.
George Clooney on Hollywood being in tune with what’s happening in society:
I don’t even know that we’re all that ahead of the curve. We usually take a couple of years to do things. Last year, the Hotel Rwanda story was a ten-year-old story. I think what’s important is that we are starting now to reflect, two years, later some of the social and political issues that are–for the first time probably since Watergate–concerning us and we’re talking about them. And then films start to reflect that a couple years later. It won’t last very long, but we’ve done this on and off. We did it in the 30s, we did it in the 50s, we certainly did it in the 60s and 70s, and we’ll probably continue to do that, which is reflect society, not truly lead it.
Ang Lee on why, after years of development, now was the right moment for Brokeback Mountain to break through to a mainstream audience:
All of us, we spend many, many years trying to get our movies made, but for our project, it was eight years–some, I think, even longer. So it happened not just by accident. I think we sense that there’s some calling, there’s some need to do certain movies about how we felt three, two years ago, and somehow this year the society catches up, I think. That means it happens. I don’t think we planned it. We speak through our heart. I’m just glad the audience embraced it. I think the audience is very hungry for love, for understanding, for respect, for complexity, for maturity. I think that’s what we need.
Reese Witherspoon on her immediate post-Oscar career plans:
I don’t know what I’ll do next. I actually have no idea. I have no work. I’m completely unemployed. So I’m looking actively for a job and hoping this isn’t the end of the line!
Rachel Weisz on her even more immediate post-Oscar plans:
I’m going to go to the Governors’ Ball afterwards, and then going to the Vanity Fair party. Let’s see how long I last. I might have to put some flat shoes on. You know, I’m like the Virgin Mary.
Paul Haggis on his back-to-back successes with Million Dollar Baby and Crash:
You mean that I wrote the last two Best Pictures, right? And are you asking me if it’s a good thing? Yeah, it’s a really good thing. I would really recommend it as a career move. Anybody who’s thinking about going out and writing the next two Best Pictures, I think it’s a good thing.
